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My thoughts on the AE so far.

This isn't to do with the matches, just the background to the event.

Mostly complaints right now :P

"Yonex Retail Village". If this is not secretly hidden away somewhere outside the main building, then it's the bunch of rubbish stalls strung out along the corridors outside the stands. The only new product that I have seen is the Nanospeed 9900, no sign of any new Yonex clothes, nor their new shuttle the Mavis M 2000P.

Food is terrible

NO PHOTOGRAPHY
I was really looking forward to recording matches and posting them up for you guys to watch, specifically in the same way Loopy did with his great HD video of the French Open back in 2006 (TH vs LD). I brought one camera for recording video, and one for taking photos, and I can use neither of them.

The seats are absolutely tiny..

Other than that, it's great to be here.. now if only I weren't half-blind too

oh, someone should have mentioned you're not allowed to bring cameras in.
you can sneak them in though, i have, they are pretty lax as they will only check your bag.
they don't check your pockets or jacket.

I know, they actually let me in with the two cameras in my bag and just told me not to use them.. but I have seen people being told off by stewards for taking cameras out. I think it's just so people don't distract the players by using flashes. Anyway, I'd need to take my tripod out if I were recording video and there's no way that that would be missed

. What stark contrast to the Dutch Open where you can pretty much do what you want. I used their power oulets, set up a tripod and even filmed all the finals whilst they were broadcasted on tv with Gill Clark doing to commentary a few rows up behind me .
Oh yeah you didn't really expect the japanese catalogue shirts to be there did you? At best it'll be the ones mentioned in the other thread that were updated on the german yonex site.

Heh. Today was much better in terms of the spectacle. The number of courts in play shrank from 5 to 3, so that if you sat in the middle you could see well what was going on all courts. The lights were also dimmed over the stands which meant it looked very atmospheric (I have a few fairly poor photos that I'll upload in a few hours) and it was easy to see the shuttle as a brilliant white spot against the black background.

I did make it out of bed in time to see LCW vs. Zweibler. It was a very good match. LCW seemed to find it difficult to get over the fact that there was someone else who was just as good at getting around the court - as someone behind me put it "To Lee Chong Wei, there is no 'not making it to the shuttle'". So Marc got around the court very well, and put in some good shots himself, but LCW eventually got himself together and put an end to Zweibler's hopes of an upset.

I also saw Chen Jin vs Gong Weijie. Now that was a mismatch if I ever saw one. I'm guessing that they're friends or something, because the scenario that happened was one that I'm familiar with myself- I'm used to playing with a friend and hitting tricky shots but shots that he can always return, and if I ever play a match against him then I can't seem to switch my mindset to one in which I have to finish him off, even if I'm well ahead (although Gong was never ahead..). In Gong Weijie's case, he didn't seem used to playing 100% competitively against a team mate, and his lack of experience made it a very easy victory for the All England holder Chen.

My final match of the day was 'Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia, and Andrew Smith.. from ENGLAND! ', as the intercom lady put it. Smith seemed pretty focussed when he came out, which contrasted with his outfit. He seriously looked like he was going to a beach party. Blue orange and white top and blue shorts.
Anyway, Taufik again repeated his bad habits from yesterday - lifting to mid court, and returning net shots to opponents who were right in front of him waiting to smash it in his face. Smith took the first game and Taufik looked a bit dazed.
Hidayat came out in the second game playing better than before, but still not at his best. The game was fairly even at the start but then Taufik pulled away and won. Smith tried to retain his confidence from the start of the match in the final set, but Taufik was on a roll and won it well. A cheering crowd (ie me) saluted Taufik as he walked from the courts.